The Hon. Kumara Jayakody - Minister of Energy

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, seeing this Motion, I am reminded of the saying “Do not trust the bear and the man who keeps a bear.” This Motion itself is false.

¶ 02 Its very beginning states: “For the 2025–2026 coal season, 12.32 million MT are required for Lakvijaya.” In reality, annually we need little more than a fifth of that. I do not know why baseless figures are used to mislead this House.

¶ 03 Next, it claims procurement was done in a manner contrary to 30.09.2022 Auditor General’s report with respect to financial capacity, experience, quality, and legal bonds. I have the Auditor General’s report dated 30.09.2022. It relates to the highly corrupt contract for 4.5 million MT over 2022–2023, 2023–2024, and 2024–2025 awarded to unqualified parties. Under Recommendation 7.2 it states that, consistent with guideline 1.2, to maximize competition, registration processes should be relaxed to a reasonable level while safeguarding basic requirements like financial capacity, experience, quality, and adequate legal bonds. Those are the exact words — now copied into this Motion out of context.

¶ 04 Accordingly, for 2022/2023, the Special Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee (SSCAPC) considered COPE directives and Cabinet views (Cabinet Memo 23/0609/621/026 of 27.03.2023) and decided to relax eligibility criteria to enhance competitiveness. The SSCAPC’s decision amended clause 10.2.b to reduce the experience requirement from 1 million MT to 500,000 MT over the previous 36 months, with at least 100,000 MT at GCV (as received) ≥ 5,900 kcal/kg. That was done then and continues for 2025/2026. Nowhere does the Auditor General say to “normalize” back; the instruction is to relax suitably — which was done.

¶ 05 Unlike in the past when hand-picked suppliers were pushed through Cabinet, we used a transparent, online process with pre-qualification checking all criteria. For 2025/2026, 26 suppliers registered; 11 bids were submitted (one withdrew), leaving 10 valid bids — the highest participation historically, fulfilling the aim of increased competition from 2022. The 21-day bid period was extended by 7 more days at suppliers’ request to maximize participation and price advantage. This was a fully open tender. We take responsibility.